In the future it seems as if we are going to be moving away from information contained within a mobile device such as a smart phone to information displayed in the real world. This technology is termed augmented reality and was first introduced on a global scale in the movie Minority Report where Tom Cruise interacted with information on a virtual screen in, what at the time was a unique way. The inventor of this interface in the movie John Underkoffler who gave a truly captivating presented at TED in 2010, which is included at the bottom of this page. Augmented has the potential to change the way we access information in our everyday lives and has huge potential within education, with the use of mobile devices to display information and deliver activities.

Head mounted augmented reality hardware is not a new concept but has become more well known in recent months with the development of Google Glass, the wearable computer with a head-mounted optical display. Augmented reality apps have been on the market for some time such as Word Lens, which translates text through the phones camera. By simply holding the camera up to a piece of text such as a menu and the app will translate all the text overlaying it onto of the original. Word Lens is still one of the most effective apps for modern foreign language translation. A similar app is Pocket Tutor Math, which recognizes simple arithmetic and will calculate the answer and can even mark your calculations for you.

Augment

Augment was an app originally created for interior design by enabling homeowners to place virtual furniture around your home to find the best location. I created some 3D images using Google Sketch Up, initially simple shapes and then molecular models, which I uploaded onto the Augment website to use a teaching tool with their free app. The aim was to enable my A-level chemistry students to visualize and explore the six shapes of molecules, which is a difficult task without being able to see and manipulate the molecules. The application of augmented reality in this context allows the students to revise and study the shapes anywhere they choose without the eliminating the issue of accessibility to physical molecules. By scanning a tracker with the app, which is an image that is assigned to the molecule, that can be a picture or QR code, the object will appear in front of you. It can then be manipulated such as rotated, enlarged and flipped by touching the screen of the smart phone or tablet. This allows students to investigate the number of lone pairs, bonding pairs and bond angles of each molecular shape, and with one marker card and a smart phone to have all six molecule shapes in their pocket. The video below shows how the 3D images are viewed.

I've included below other examples of augmented reality apps that are useful in the education, the majority of which are related to science.

I first heard about augmented reality after a SSAT conferences some years ago, where I was shown a demo of the internal organs by AR Learn. By placing a marker card on your chest and holding it up to a webcam through the AR Learning website the organs appear. This is a really powerful application of augmented reality and allows the internal organs to be viewed close up and in the correct position within the body.

This activity can be used as behaviour for learning (BfL) activity to relax students at the start of the lesson and get them into learning mode, a literacy exercise where students have to highlight nouns, pronouns, verbs, transitive verbs, adjectives etc. The activity also enhances listening skills and is particularly effective for EAL students. Finally is can be used as the introduction and foundations of a lesson, where the basic lesson content is delivered through a song.

Cut out each line of the lyrics, the students then have to place them in the correct sequence on hearing the song. This requires complete focus and silence and is most effective as a paired activity. The activity can be applied to any song, but I recommend that is has a low tempo as it has a calming affect on the students and they will need to find each line of the song before the next one is sung.

They Might Be Giants the, '90's band of Birdhouse in Your Soul fame have produced many songs which are education related, their album and DVD Here Comes Science is an excellent resources and contains 19 tracks on various science topics which make really useful starters.

I've included some of the tracks I've used many times which has had positive outcomes below. Songs that the students are not fully familiar with work best as they are then forced to listen intently to the track as opposed to just using their memory to complete the sequence.

A collection of stickers to provide praise to students and used as marking feedback. the stickers range from plaster format to highlight fundamental errors in work which can be easily corrected (as devised by Mike Beavis) to blue and green iPhone-esque speech bubbles used to establish student-teacher dialogue. Also included are SOLO stickers which are placed on students work to indicate their level of thinking and learning.

Most of the stickers are composed in Microsoft Word rather than publisher so are Mac compatible and can be easily customised for individual use. The majority of the stickers are in 3 x 7 format, which can be printed onto L7160 sticker paper.

I give scientist Merit stickers (Publisher) to my students for excellent work and they have to collect all 25 to gain a commendation certificate. Each famous scientist has a different message of praise, a selection are shown below and they are available for download, along with all my other feedback stickers here.

Using the template below questions are printed out onto Post-it Notes. The colour of the Post-it Note corresponds to the level of difficulty of the question.

The Post-it Notes are then placed onto the desk of each student before they enter the room; the students then have to answer their question as their starter activity. Post-it Note starters enables the teacher to differentiate the question each student receives to challenge them, but at the same time make it achievable. I use the five different colours of Post-it Notes for five levels of difficulty.

Entry and exit cards are effective in measuring the amount of progress a student makes during a lesson by both, the teacher and the student. For the teacher walking around and seeing what each students writes down is useful for informing and differentiating the learning for that lesson.

When the students come into the room they are handed an entry card, which can be structured like the Boarding Cards or open ended like the iPhone cards. With the lesson objectives shown on the board the students have to write down everything they know about this topic. This can be key words, phrases or descriptive information. This information will then serve as a bench mark to measure learning against, and is useful when used in combination with SOLO.

At the end, or at a intermediate plenary session during the lesson the students are given the exit card to complete. This activity does work well and the students are clearly able to see their progression during the lesson. At the end of the lesson I collect in both the entry and exit cards (they are usually printed back-to-back on card) and hand them out again the following lesson as the students enter the room as a reminder of the level they were working at last lesson.

At the start of each lesson I place a thinking task on the board for my students to answer. This starts the lesson off with a challenging but fun task and gets them in the correct frame of mind for learning. The tasks vary from lateral thinking, memory, mathematical and literacy questions. The website skoolio.co.uk contains hundreds of Brainteasers of varying difficulties and are also good to get any lesson off to a positive start where students have to apply System 2 thinking as described by the Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman in his book Thinking Fast and Slow. System 1 thinking is quick and automatic and requires little or no effort, while System 2 thinking is required to solve complex problems of mental tasks.

I've produced several PowerPoint presentations over the years with questions to challenge students thinking which are available from my GoogleDrive. Other activities such as Thunks are also good at getting students in the deep thinking zone!

Author

Paul is Head of Science in a secondary school in the South West of England, and a Fellow of the College of Teachers, with an interest in developing new and innovative learning and teaching strategies to enable students to achieve their potential.